Bartholomew Wilcox Shanks

Bartholomew Wilcox "Bill" Shanks (died December 1777) was a private in the Continental Army's 10th Pennsylvania Regiment. Shanks deserted in 1777 after the Paoli Massacre, and he was unwittingly used by Major John Andre to distract George Washington as Lieutenant Arthur Sutherland attempted to kill the head of the Committee to Detect and Defeat Conspiracies, Nathaniel Sackett.

Biography
Bartholomew Wilcox Shanks was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he worked as a clerk on Lombard Street until the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775. Shanks enlisted in the 10th Pennsylvania Regiment and served under Anthony Wayne during the campaign for Philadelphia in 1777, and he was court-martialled for stealing an officer's boots at the time of the Paoli Massacre. Shanks was forced to flee to the British Army's camp, where he overheard Major John Andre discussing a plot to assassinate Washington with a man named "Gamble", the alias of Royal Fusiliers Lieutenant Arthur Sutherland. Shanks decided to make amends with Washington by heading to Valley Forge and warning him of the assassination attempt on him. Shanks did not know that this information was deliberately said near him, and he was secretly being used; Washington was distracted as his intelligence leader Nathaniel Sackett's throat was slit by Sutherland as he debriefed him. Washington had Shanks hanged the next day as a spy, refusing to heed Captain Benjamin Tallmadge's advice that Shanks was actually telling the truth and was an unwitting participant in the plot.